ALBANY, N.Y. - State Sen. Diane Savino is pushing to get her medical marijuana bill out of the Senate Health Committee, with an eye toward passing the legislation by the end of June, when the Legislature wraps up business.

"The goal is to pass the bill by the end of session," Ms. Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) said.

Ms. Savino filed a "motion for committee consideration" for the bill, known as the Compassionate Care Act, with the Health Committee. That seeks to get the bill voted on by the committee.

While some portrayed the move as a bid to end-run the Senate GOP majority on the bill, Ms. Savino said her motion was legislative business as usual.

"You want a bill to move, you have to file a motion," she said.

The bill would then have to go through the Codes and Finance committees before being voted on by the whole Senate. Ms. Savino said that she has 39 "yes" votes in the upper house.

"I'm sure it's going to be amended," said Ms. Savino. "Members are going to weigh in fully."

Ms. Savino said that some of her colleagues are concerned about approving medical marijuana in smokable form.

"They wonder if we should be encouraging smoking," Ms. Savino said, adding that some want medical marijuana restricted to non-smokable form only, such as vaporization.

But she said that medical marijuana medically can't be restricted in that way.

"For some patients, smoking is the only way they can use it," she said. "It's the fastest way to get it into the bloodstream."

Children, she said, would be given ingestible marijuana oil, not a smokable form, to treat their illnesses under the legislation.

It was reported on Monday that Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said that Ms. Savino's bill was effectively dead for the current session, leading to a media back-and-forth between the two lawmakers.